1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system, method, and apparatus for banner advertising, and more particularly to a system, method and apparatus for banner advertising capable of allowing an easy handling of an order and an inquiry for a product and services on a banner advertisement.
2. Discussion of the Background
A digital image forming apparatus which integrates multiple functions including printing, copying, facsimile functions, and scanning has recently been developed. In this digital image forming apparatus, one main body is provided with an operation display unit, a printing mechanism, and an image reading mechanism as well as four kinds of applications corresponding to the printing, copying, facsimile, and scanning functions. By switching these four applications, the digital image forming apparatus is capable of performing the above-mentioned multiple functions.
Referring to FIG. 1, an exemplary way of a maintenance service system relative to the above-mentioned digital image forming apparatus is explained. FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary data flow between an image forming apparatus 2000 and a maintenance service server 3000 via a public switched telephone network 1000.
One example of the maintenance service system is illustrated in FIG. 1, in which the maintenance service server 3000 communicates with the image forming apparatus 2000 via the public switched telephone network 1000 to collect various kinds of information including machine usage data indicative of a number of performance times with respect to an image forming operation, toner data indicative of an amount of toner left in the image forming apparatus 2000, and so on. The maintenance service server 3000 calculates a maintenance service fee and offers an exchange of toner bottles, for example, based on the information collected from the image forming apparatus 2000.
Another example of the maintenance service system is described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication, No. 2000-59554. This maintenance service system is illustrated in FIG. 2, in which an image forming apparatus 6000 at a user site is connected to a public switched telephone network 5000 via a modem 7000, and an information distribution server 8000 at a maintenance provider side is connected to the public switched telephone network 5000 via a model 9000.
In this maintenance service system, the information distribution server distributes information such as advertisements at predetermined intervals to the specified image forming 6000 which is a specified apparatus. With this configuration, the information such as advertisements held in the image forming apparatus 6000 is displayed on an operation display panel when the image forming apparatus performs an image forming operation.
As another example, a banner advertisement is publicly known to display an advertisement on a terminal at a user side. In the banner advertisement, however, a click ratio has been declined in recent years and, as a result, a ratio that the banner advertisement yields sales results is lowered.
Under the circumstances, the banner advertisement industry tries various kinds of attempts to increase the click ratio, such as animating advertisements, emphasizing characters using colors, special forms, etc.
In the background maintenance service system, however, the advertisements displayed on the display panel of the image forming apparatus at the user side may not necessarily be fit for a user preference. Even if the advertisements are fit for a user preference, the user cannot take an immediate action since the background image forming apparatus does not have a function to place an order or an inquiry for a product or services displayed on the banner advertisement. In addition, the user needs to be attending the image forming apparatus to see the banner advertisements, which is not a quite an advantage for the banner advertisement. Furthermore, the advertiser of the banner advertisement needs to establish a collection system for collecting maintenance service fees from users. For the users, it is not a merit to keep the display power on for such an advertisement including unconcerned information.